Toyota’s rise to the top of the world as the seller of the world’s largest number of cars has been the result of top quality manufacturing practices and diligence. The car maker rose when the others such as General Motors and Ford were declining and overtook every other car company including Volkswagen and became world no.1. But nature (read that as the now infamous tsunami) and the near nuclear melt down in Japan have undone the hard work that Toyota had done carefully over a number of years. Due to the cuts in production globally, Toyota is unlikely to remain on the top for long. Toyota itself has said that it may take up to another eight months or the end of the year for it to make a recovery in terms of getting all its factories up and running to their full capacities.
Yearly Archives: 2011
We had reported recently that Toyota is cutting down production in India due to supply chain problems emanating from the after effects of the tsunami in Japan. The same problems have also been affecting Honda as well. In a move that was considered inevitable, Honda has decided to cut down on production in India due to a squeeze on the availability of parts. While this is bad news for Toyota and Honda, it will be music to the ears of their competitors who can look at increasing sales of their own products. This now means that there is a big question mark about the launch dates of the Toyota Liva (the hatchback version of the Etios) and the Honda Brio, the new small car from Honda that was to be launched later in the year.
Indian companies seem to be the lucky charm of ailing car companies. Tata took over Jaguar and changes in Jaguar’s fortunes became visible soon enough. Jaguar now is ambitiously looking forward to a good future. Mahindra has only just finished the take over of Ssangyong and it is being reported that the Korean car maker has recorded its best sales in the past three years. For the sceptics who want to scoff at this theory here is the explanation. Mahindra may only have completed the actual take over recently but the process has been on for the last one year nearly. It looks like the news of a takeover has given confidence to the Korean buyers to look at Ssangyong more seriously. Also a couple of new products were in the pipeline and they too seemed to have contributed to the increase in sales. All in all, good news for Mahindra.
The high profile divorce between Renault and Mahindra last year is now well known. Renault sought to venture into India with Mahindra and brought in the Logan as its entry vehicle. The Logan in Europe is sold mainly under the Romanian car maker Dacia’s badge. Renault owns Dacia fully. Under the stewardship of Carlos Ghosn, Renault was looking for more volumes and therefore worked on an inexpensive but competent car and the product they came out with was the Logan. Keeping costs down meant that the Logan looked very ordinary with hardly any styling but the car itself is competent and spacious, a quality that has endeared the car to the taxi trade with most Radio cab players in the country preferring it. The Logan took of reasonably well in the country but the bickering between Renault and Mahindra led to its sales slowing down. But after the divorce Mahindra has given the car some attention and sales have improved. Now that the collaboration with Renault is over and because Renault holds the rights over the Logan name, Mahindra has given it the Verito moniker. From now on the car will be Verito and sport only Mahindra badging. It is believed that in the future, the car will also get styling tweaks and that a sub four metre version will also make it into the market.
Present day F1 relies heavily on wind tunnel testing to get the all important aerodynamic package right for races. Ferrari has been faring poorly relative to Red Bull Racing and McLaren. It has now been identified that the source of Ferrari’s problem is an inaccurately calibrated wind tunnel. So Ferrari is now in the process of a recalibration of the wind tunnel. This is something that will take time so there are no quick fixes for Ferrari’s problems.
Virgin Racing has sworn by CFD or computational fluid dynamics for the aero aspect of its car. Technical Director Nick Wirth who also was involved with the Simtek team in the 1990s has said that CFD cuts down expenditure and is as reliable as wind tunnel testing. But the poor performance of the Virgin car last year and in the three races so far has made John Booth the team Principal seek the services of Pat Symonds who along with Flavio Briatore was sensationally involved in asking Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash his Renault car to facilitate an Alonso win. Symonds was banned from the sport but can now consult for a team and return to the pit wall in 2014. It is hoped by Virgin that Symonds can provide the required turn around by identifying the problem areas.
We all know about the horrific crash that Polish F1 driver Robert Kubica suffered when he had an accident in a Skoda Fabia car in a rally in February before the start of the F1 season. Kubica is a known fan of rallying and was using his spare time rallying, when he suffered the horrific crash that first threatened to take his life and then his right hand. Miraculously however, Kubica not only lived but also had his almost severed right hand kept intact after surgery. But it has taken four major surgeries to get Kubica to keep his limb intact. Kubica has been in hospital to stave off any problems of post-surgery infections. It is now being reported that Kubica will be discharged and will go home from where he has to continue his long recuperation. Physio therapy will be required and it is more or less certain that Kubica will not return to racing this year with the Lotus Renault F1 team to whom he is contracted.
It is a well known thing that manufacturers of cars and bikes like to go to markets where they can sell more of their wares, for racing. The Sentul circuit in Indonesia has been used for the hosting of MotoGP and World Superbikes in the 1990s. World Superbike seems to be on course for a race in Indonesia from next year on and MotoGP also has indicated that it would like to go to Indonesia. India has also been considered an important market and there have been talks about an Indian MotoGP Grand Prix as early as 2012. Remains to be seen if this well translate into reality for both World Superbikes and MotoGP.
Next year is when new rules regarding the MotoGP will kick in. There is a new category that is coming up which will be called the Claiming Rules Teams, and some are suggesting that this category which will function as a sub-category of the MotoGP class could be called Moto1. The rules for claiming rules teams are that they can use a production derived engine in a custom built chassis using the restrictions set by the FIM. As per this the teams will be allowed fuel of 24 litres per race as against the 21 litres that regular teams will use. However, the concept of claiming rules is that if another team in the same category suspects that a particular team has breached regulations it can claim the engine by paying a predetermined sum of money. Herve Poncharal and his Tech 3 outfit were tipped to move to the new category, but Poncharal has indicated that his outfit will remain a Yamaha satellite team and that would convenient not just for Tech 3, but for Yamaha as well, since potential factory riders are first blooded in Poncharal’s team.
World car fans has shown pictures of an un-camouflaged version of the Fiesta based mini SUV. The pictures are from Europe where the car seems to be undergoing tests in very cold conditions. Speculation is rife that this vehicle will make it to the Indian market as well, since Michael Boneham of Ford India has said that the car maker is likely to introduce eight new models by 2015. Meanwhile, Ford has denied that it has any plans of launching the hatch back version of the new Fiesta since it was not sure if there is a market for an expensive hatchback. Ford must be looking at the failure of the Chevrolet Optra SRV in the Indian market. But then the problem with the SRV was that it was all show with very little go.